After walkouts and marches in Dallas, San Diego, Chicago and Los Angeles -- some Walmart employees unhappy with working conditions are threatening a strike on Black Friday.

An employee strike on the day after Thanksgiving, widely considered the busiest and most lucrative retail day of the year, could deal a significant financial blow to the retailer.

Walmart is the world's largest private employer and has long been a target of workers' rights groups who advocate for higher wages, more flexibility in hours and an end to the punishments (reduced shifts, for instance) they claim are meted out to workers seeking to unionize.

On a conference call Wednesday, leaders of Our Walmart, the National Consumers League and other labor groups said they will join Walmart workers outside stores on Black Friday if their demands are not met.

Last Thursday, about 30 employees from a store in Pico Rivera, Calif.,held signs that read "Stand Up, Live Better, Stop Retaliation" and "Stop Trying to Silence Us" and marched outside the store. At the same time, workers at eight other Walmart stores in California protested working conditions and treatment.

It was the first-ever employee walk-out in the company's 50-year history, said Dawn Le, a spokeswoman for Making Change at Walmart, a coalition whose mission is to change the way Walmart conducts business.

In mid-September, warehouse workers in Southern California were on a 15-day strike that included a six-day, 50-mile pilgrimage for safe jobs.

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Around the same time, hundreds of people marched in Dallas and San Diego, demanding better work conditions.

On Monday, Chicago police dressed in riot gear arrested 17 peaceful protesters blocking the entrance to a warehouse operated by an outside contractor that supplies Walmart stores in Elwood, Ill.